In a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), a high speed cache (Cache) may be deployed on a radio network controller (RNC, Radio Network Controller) or a base station (NodeB).
If the cache is deployed on an RNC, a local storage medium and popularity information need to be deployed on the RNC. In addition, the RNC parses an application layer data packet, and locally caches content that meets a cache decision condition. The RNC is responsible for maintaining cached content and content whose popularity does not reach a threshold, but subsequently may further cache resource popularity information. Capacity of the local storage medium deployed on the RNC is maximum capacity of the Cache. A Cache service may be unloaded with reference to local traffic. That is, the RNC unloads, through a Gi interface, service traffic of a packet service (PS, Packet Service) of an external network that does not need to pass a core network, and directly sends the traffic to a corresponding service provider (SP, Service Provider) to save a bandwidth from the RNC to a core network side. Meanwhile, when content accessed by a user equipment is already cached on the RNC, the content may be extracted directly from the local storage medium of the RNC and fed back to the user equipment, thereby saving a transmission bandwidth of an Iu interface and a subsequent transmission network bandwidth while at the same time reducing an access delay of the user equipment. On a UMTS network, however, a transmission bandwidth of an IUB interface cannot be saved when the Cache is deployed on the RNC; and this does not help the UMTS network to be smoothly upgraded to LTE.
If the Cache is deployed on a NodeB, the popularity information and the local storage medium are deployed on the NodeB. To parse the application layer data packet, the NodeB needs to determine whether the content accessed by the user equipment can be locally cached and then a PS user plane needs to be moved down to the NodeB. Similarly, the Cache service may also be combined with a local traffic unloading technology. The NodeB provides the Gi interface, and the PS service of the external network is unloaded through the Gi interface and directly sent to the corresponding SP, thereby saving the transmission bandwidth of the Iub interface and the subsequent network transmission bandwidth. However, because NodeBs are closer to a network edge, a single NodeB covers a limited number of user equipments and a hit rate will be relatively low, it is only applicable to indoor coverage and low-mobility scenarios. In addition, user equipments covered by different NodeBs may access same hot content, causing the same hot content to be cached on multiple NodeBs and causing same content to occupy cache resources of the multiple NodeBs.
In a process of researching and practicing the prior art, it is found that in an existing implementation manner, Cache information is managed inside a single network element no matter whether the Cache is deployed on the RNC or the NodeB, and a storage space to which a single network element can be mounted is limited. In addition, if the Cache is deployed on the RNC, this is not conducive to smooth upgrade to LTE and the transmission bandwidth of the IUB interface cannot be saved; if the Cache is deployed on the NodeB, because the number of covered user equipments is limited, the hit rate will be relatively low, it is only applicable to indoor coverage and low-mobility scenarios, and different NodeBs may repetitively cache a same resource, thereby causing a failure to implement sharing inside a network.